news details |
|
|
| I&FC department keeps 'influentials' out of purview of demolition drive across Kashmir | | | Shakeel A Khan
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Feb 4: The axe of the demolition drive has fallen on the poor people only since the authorities have adopted pick and choose policy while carrying out this exercise. Parameters vary from class to class resulting into a situation where the affluent continue to violate the rules and regulations.
While the Irrigation and Flood Control department announced through different forms of media that all illegal structures will be razed, but actually it has failed to gather courage to deal with the defaulters who incidentally are the big guns, enjoying the political shelter.
"Last two and the half decades which witnessed turmoil in the valley provided opportunists with every chance to grab the prized government land mostly in the tourist places. With the passage of time these structures were raised on the grabbed land. It seems that the concerned department seems to have got no strength to deal with the big guns," said Gulzar Ahmad from Anantnag.
According to Gulzar, Pahalgam, the world famous tourist spot of the valley, is fast losing its sheen on account of the land grabbing and the subsequent constructions on them by the people who are very influential in the corridors of the power.
"Local dailies also reported many times on the nexus between the authorities and the land mafia but the Irrigation and Flood Control department appears to have no teeth when it comes to the demolishing the structures of the politically powerful persons," he said.
People of the valley say that if the department is really concerned about the possible floods in the future then it should demolish the illegal constructions raised by the influential and rest of the people will follow automatically. They say that it is no brave act of the department to mark or demolish the illegal constructions of poor people.
"The authorities have turned a blind eye towards this fact and the last 20 years or so land en-route Sonamarg and in Sonamarg also, the land has been encroached upon. It is the will of the blue eyed persons whose wish gets fulfilled as far as raising the illegal structures is concerned," said Ghulam Ahmad from Ganderbal.
Ahmad who is associated with the tourism related activities for the last 40 years said that land mafia took full advantage of the turmoil and as a matter of fact the area of the Sonamarg like many other tourist spots of the valley shrunk.
"In the recent past some forest land in these health resorts has been lost to the land mafia as the trees were felled down to pave the way for the illegal constructions," he added. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
